Last modified time: September 27, 2021

1 Create bar charts

1.3 Obtain a table about residential electricity consumption

Assumption: 1 kBtu=3.412 KWH

## # A tibble: 54 × 5
## # Groups:   YEAR [5]
##     YEAR MONTH   TOTALKWH Residential_Electric_kBtu Time      
##    <dbl> <dbl>      <dbl>                     <dbl> <date>    
##  1  2017     1 2696632298               9200909401. 2017-01-01
##  2  2017     2 2089405296               7129050870. 2017-02-01
##  3  2017     3 2007875145               6850869995. 2017-03-01
##  4  2017     4 1838107707               6271623496. 2017-04-01
##  5  2017     5 2070656073               7065078521. 2017-05-01
##  6  2017     6 2615607826               8924453902. 2017-06-01
##  7  2017     7 3113124827              10621981910. 2017-07-01
##  8  2017     8 2995761408              10221537924. 2017-08-01
##  9  2017     9 5072659238              17307913320. 2017-09-01
## 10  2017    10 1956786021               6676553904. 2017-10-01
## # … with 44 more rows

1.4 Obtain a table about residential gas consumption

Assumption: 1 kBtu=100.00039 THM

## # A tibble: 54 × 5
## # Groups:   YEAR [5]
##     YEAR MONTH  TOTALTHM Residential_Gas_kBtu Time      
##    <dbl> <dbl>     <dbl>                <dbl> <date>    
##  1  2017     1 332986863         33298816165. 2017-01-01
##  2  2017     2 214756795         21475763255. 2017-02-01
##  3  2017     3 167698331         16769898502. 2017-03-01
##  4  2017     4 128910844         12891134675. 2017-04-01
##  5  2017     5  93587412          9358777699. 2017-05-01
##  6  2017     6  74050205          7405049380. 2017-06-01
##  7  2017     7  70934300          7093457664. 2017-07-01
##  8  2017     8  69535451          6953572219. 2017-08-01
##  9  2017     9 136754090         13675462334. 2017-09-01
## 10  2017    10  92544327          9254468792. 2017-10-01
## # … with 44 more rows

1.5 Obtain a combined data set of electricity consumption and gas consumption

  1. List the electricity and gas consumption of each month from the first quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2021 in chronological order.

  2. Take kBtu as the unit for statistics.

1.6 Create bar charts showing monthly total kBTUs of residential electricity and gas consumption for the entire PG&E territory

Time window: from the first quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2021

1.7 Create bar charts showing monthly total kBTUs of commercial electricity and gas consumption for the entire PG&E territory

(The operation steps are almost the same as 1.1-1.6, and replace ‘residential’ with ‘commercial’.)

Time window: from the first quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2021

2 Analysis of observable changes

2.1 Calculate the ratio of commercial to residential energy consumption

*The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020.

2.2 Comment on observable changes in energy consumption that may be attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic

Comment 1

In the chart "Ratio of commercial to residential energy consumption", I used the red line to mark the time when WHO declared a pandemic (according to WHO). It can be seen that after this time point, the ratio of commercial energy consumption to residential energy consumption has dropped significantly. This is in line with our perception that due to the epidemic, people spend more time at home instead of in commercial buildings.

Comment 2

Starting from the first quarter of 2021, the ratio of commercial energy consumption to residential energy consumption has rebounded significantly. This may be due to the liberalization of restrictions on the COVID-19 in various regions. The implementation of the epidemic control  policy is no longer that mandatory. More people choose to return to commercial buildings. As of the second quarter of 2021, this ratio is basically the same as the second quarter of 2019. Compared with the same period before the pandemic, there was even a slight improvement.

Comment 3

According to the chart "total gas consumption - residential and commercial", since the first quarter of 2017, the gas consumption of commercial and residential buildings has been showing a downward trend. However, after the outbreak of the epidemic, this downward trend no longer continued, and the total gas consumption increased.

Comment 4

According to the chart "total electricity consumption - residential and commercial", since the outbreak of the epidemic, total electricity consumption has risen significantly. This may be due to the significant increase in the amount of time people spend indoors during the epidemic, and the decrease in outdoor activities, leading to an increase in electricity consumption. Starting from the first quarter of 2021, such high-level electricity consumption has dropped again. This may be because the impact of the epidemic on people's normal lives has been significantly reduced, and the total electricity consumption has basically fallen to the level before the epidemic.